lawyers derived the greatest part of their knowledge from those of the continent;[AT] while on the other hand, the Gallic Druids are known to have resorted to Britain for instruction in their mysterious rites. The Britons, therefore, could not be totally ignorant of the Gallic language. And hence it will appear, that Grimbald, John, and the other doctors introduced by Alfred,[AU] could find no great difficulty in propagating their native tongue in this island; which tongue, at that interval of time, could only be the true Romance, since they were contemporaries with Lewis the Germanic.

That the Romance was almost universally understood in this kingdom under Edward the Confessor, it being not only used at court, but frequently at the bar, and even sometimes in the pulpit, is a fact too well known and attested[AV] to need my further authenticating it with superfluous arguments and testimonies.

Duclos, in his History of the Gallic' Romance,[AW] gives the abovementioned oath of Lewis as the first monument of that language. The second he mentions is the code of laws of William the Conqueror,[AX] whom the least proficient in the English history knows to have rendered his language almost universal in this kingdom. How little progress it had yet made towards the modern French; and how great an affinity it still bore with the present Romansh of the Grisons, will appear from the annexed translation of the first paragraph of these laws into the latter tongue.[AY]

If we may credit Du Cange,[AZ] who grounds his assertion upon various instruments of the kings of Scotland during the twelfth century, the Romance had also penetrated into that kingdom before that period.

The same corruption, or coalescence, which gave rise to the Gallic Romance, and to that of the Grisons, must also have produced in Italy a language, if not perfectly similar, at least greatly approaching to those two idioms. Nor did it want its northern nations to contribute what the two other branches derived from that source.[BA] But be the origin what it will, certain it is, that a jargon very different from either the Latin or the Italian was spoken in Italy from the time of the irruptions of the barbarians to the successful labours of Dante and Petrarca; that this jargon was usually called the vulgar idiom; but that Speroni,[BB] the father of an Italian literature, and others, frequently call it the common Italian Romance. And if Fontanini's[BC] authorities be sufficient, it appears that even the Gallic Romance, by the residence of the papal court at Avignon, and from other causes, made its way into Italy before it was polished into the Provençal.

As to Naples and Sicily, the expulsion of the Saracens by the Normans, under Robert Guiscard in 1059, must have produced in that country nearly the same effect, a similar event soon after brought about in England. And in fact we have the authority of William of Apulia[BD] to prove, that the conquerors used all their efforts to propagate their language and manners among the natives, that they might ever after be considered only as one people. And Hugo Falcland[BE] relates, that in the year 1150, Count Henry refused to take upon him the management of public affairs, under pretence of not knowing the language of the French; which, he adds, was absolutely necessary at court.

That the language of the Romans penetrated very early into Spain, appears most evidently from a passage in Strabo,[BF] who asserts that the Turditani inhabiting the banks of the Boetis, now the Guadalquivir, forgot their original tongue, and adopted that of the conquerors. That the Romance was used there in the fourteenth century appears from a correspondence between St. Vincent of Ferrieres and Don Martin, son of Peter the IVth of Arragon;[BG] and that this language must once have been common in that kingdom appears manifestly from the present name of the Spanish, which is still usually called Romance.[BH] These circumstances considered, I am not so much inclined to discredit a fact related by Mabillon,[BI] who says, that in the eighth century a paralytic Spaniard, on paying his devotions at the tomb of a saint in the church of Fulda, conversed with a monk of that abbey, who, because he was an Italian, understood the language of the Spaniard. Neither does an oral tradition I heard some times ago appear so absurd to me, as it did when it was first related to me, which says, that two Catalonians travelling over the Alps, were not a little surprized when they came into the Grison country, to find that their native tongue was understood by the inhabitants, and that they could comprehend most of the language of that district.

This universality of the Romance in the French dominions during the eleventh century, also accounts for its introduction in Palestine and many other parts of the Levant by Godfrey de Bouillon, and the multitude of adventurers who engaged under him in the Crusade. The assizes of Jerusalem, and those of Cyprus, are standing monuments of the footing that language had obtained in those parts; and if we may trust a Spanish historian of some reputation[BJ] who resided in Greece in the thirteenth century, the Athenians and the inhabitants of Morea spoke at that time the same language that was used in France. And there is great reason to imagine, that the affinity the Lingua Franca bears to the French and Italian is intirely to be derived from the Romance, which was once commonly used in the ports of the Levant. The heroic atchievements and gallantry of the knights of the cross also gave rise to the swarm of fabulous narratives; which, though not an invention of those days, were yet, from the name of the language in which they were written, ever after distinguished by the appellation of Romances.[BK]

I shall now conclude this letter by observing, that far from presuming that the Romance has been preserved so near its primitive state only in the country of the Grisons, there is great reason to suppose that it still exists in several other remote and unfrequented parts. When Fontanini informs us[BL] that the ancient Romance is now spoken in the country of the Grisons, he adds, that it is also the common dialect of the Friulese, and of some districts in Savoy bordering upon Dauphiné. And Rivet[BM] seriously undertakes to prove, that the Patois of several parts of the Limousin, Quercy, and Auvergne (which in fact agrees singularly with the Romansh of the Grisons) is the very Romance of eight centuries ago. Neither do I doubt, but what some inquisitive traveller might still meet with manifest traces of it in many parts of the Pyrenaeans and other mountainous regions of Spain, where the Moors and other invaders have never penetrated.

I have the honour to be, &c.

* * * * *

# No. I. Oath of Lewis the Germanic. #

1. Latin from which the Romances are derived. 2. Gallic Romance in which the oath was taken. 3. French of the twelfth century. 4. Romansh of Engadine, called Ladin. 5. Romansh of both dialects.

1. Pro Dei amore, et pro Christiano populo, et nostro 2. Pro Deu amur, et pro Christian poblo, et nostro 3. Por Deu amor, et por Christian people, et nostre 4. Per amur da Dieu, et per il Christian poevel, et noss 5. Pro l'amur da Deus, et pro il Christian pobel, et nost

1. communi salvamento, de ista die in abante, in quan- 2. commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant 3. commun salvament, de ste di en avant, en quant 4. commun salvament, da quist di in avant, in quant 5. commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant

1.tum Deus sapere et posse mihi donat, sic salvabo ego 2. Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai io 3. Deu saveir et poïr me